Why your church needs small groups

Why your church needs small groups.        

Studies have shown that visitors come to your church for three main reasons:

• A few, 6 - 8 %, just walk in because the church is in their neighborhood and it is connected to their background either denominationally or theologically.
• Some 8 -12% have heard about the Pastor on the radio, television, or through the community.
• But most, 70 -80 %, come because they were invited by a friend or relative.

That’s how they get in the first time. But what is it that makes them want to come back and perhaps become active members? 

Relationships! 

They either have a relationship with someone in the church or they expect to be able to develop relationships with people in the church.

Then, after they are in the church for about six months, they may question their commitment: 

• Am I needed? 
• Can I make friends? 
• Where do I fit in?

Then after they have been there a year they might ask a different set of questions:

• Is my work appreciated? 
• Are my friends in church as good as my friends in the world? 
• Does the church fit my needs?

Small groups provide the means to respond to these concerns and even avoid them entirely. 

The normal person can know about 70 people on a social level.  It is possible to be close friends with up to about 14 - 17 people.  And we can be deeply close with only a few. 

There are three primary levels of personal relationships;

• community,
• social
• and intimate. 

Notice that Jesus had three deeply close disciples, twelve that He knew intimately, seventy that were part of His ministry team, and hundreds of followers. 

Community

Community gives us an identity and the realization there are others like us. It provides opportunities to be with others who share our interests.  Communities are usually established based upon a common background. 

If our church commitment never moves beyond community it is unlikely that relationships with fellow church members will ever grow beyond a casual nod once a week on Sunday morning.

Social

The second level of relationship is social and is generally made up of groups of people who are socially acquainted.  Each person knows everyone else, generally by name.  It is almost impossible for an outsider not to be immediately identified.  

In churches, social relationships are encouraged through Sunday school classes, Men's and Women's fellowships, the choir, committee meetings and social events such as potlucks, bowling or softball.  Any newcomer who is willing has the opportunity to enter into the group and get acquainted.  These groups actually become small congregations and are useful in satisfying the need for assimilating new members into the body. 

For many of us, our life is filled with social obligations.  We spend time running from one event to another from one meeting to the next.  We run to choir practice, to Boy Scouts, to Little League practice, to the neighbor’s party, etc.  

But even with all these activities, people are still lonely.  So they sign up for new activities hoping that will satisfy their loneliness.  Yet the more social events they attend, the lonelier they become.

Intimacy

Years ago the need for intimacy was satisfied by the extended family, those close friends and family members with whom we had developed trust and confidence.  

Today with our transient, fast-paced and troubled society, families are spread across the country, people are too busy to really get to know their neighbors and too fearful in some areas to go outside. 

As a result, the lack of intimate loving relationships has become one of the chief contributors to problems of sexual immorality, mental health and substance abuse as people search the wrong places for meaningful and loving relationships. 

To paraphrase Jesus, "the greatest commandment is to love God completely, and your neighbor as you love yourself. This implies intimate, honest and safe relationships.

We are called into relationship with God and relationship with others. Both relationships must be more than a superficial, social relationship. The relationships need to be loving and above all trusting where we can be honest, objective and fearless.  It is impossible to develop these deep relationships in large groups.  That is why social activities generally fail in drawing people close together.  

Small groups provide the opportunity for people to develop intimate, trusting, and honest relationships, vertical with God and horizontal with others.

They provide the glue that will hold a body together.

Send us your comments. 

Why Small Groups?

Small group meetings have become kind of a "Thing" in churches today. 

Everybody seems to be doing them. But why? What is are their purpose?

If you ask pastors and lay leaders why they have small groups they will give you some mumble jumble about fellowship, church growth, or discipleship. But - in many cases - the real reason a church decides to start a small group ministry is that they have seen successful churches with small groups. We pastors and church leaders like to copy success.

Secular society has also discovered the "small group" phenomena. Manufacturing companies have incorporated small groups as a means of maintaining quality control. It was these "Quality Circles" that transformed the Japanese automobile industry in the '60s and '70s which nearly wiped out the US car industry until they too caught on.

Some see the "small group" phenomena as the result of Post Modernism, but small groups have been around for hundreds of years.

John Wesley's revival that transformed England in the 18th century and led to the Second Great Awakening in the US in the early 19th century, resulted in part from small groups. George Whitefield was a great revivalist in England and America before the Revolutionary War. According to Wesley, the great weakness in the Whitefield led awakening was the failure to draw the newly converted people into a close, corporate discipline. In a sermon in 1778 he observed that,

"...the people had no Christian connection with each other, nor were they taught to watch over each other's souls."

Methodist class meetings or societies were the focal point of the Wesleyan revival in England and were just as effective on the American frontier. Wesley quickly realized that many were coming to faith in Christ without any knowledge of how to grow in this new life. As a result, Wesley formed his movement into three different-sized groups for varying levels of spiritual growth and support. 

1. “Societies” were essentially congregational churches. 
2. “Classes” were mixed groups where no more than fifty individuals would gather for instruction and prayer. 
3. “Bands” were single-sex groups of no more than ten individuals who met every week to discuss direct and probing questions in order to bring about character formation and Christlikeness. 

The groups became the basic medium within early Methodism;

• for spiritual growth, 
• for relationships and
• for personal spiritual accountability. 

In the smaller sized meetings were found;

• intimate human fellowship 
• and discovery of intimacy with Almighty God.

Classes, or societies, were formed in a new community by the itinerant preacher who might preach one or two days and then form a class and select a leader. 

Perhaps the supreme moment in the communal experience of the Methodists came in the "Love Feasts" Each quarter all of the members in a circuit were brought together for a joint meeting. The love feasts, a part of that meeting were normally closed to all but members and usually preceded or immediately followed the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Opportunities were given to share Christian experiences, offer scriptural verses, extemporaneous prayer and hymn singing. 

Fuller Theological Seminary has done extensive research on the subject of groups in the church and has discovered several important factors, that coincide with Wesley's methods. People find comfort when three basic levels of relationships exist. 

• A large group of people with common interests.
• A group of people they know and can have fellowship and share opinions.
• A smaller group with whom they can share feelings.

Churches that are successful provide all three of these relational experiences. Before people talked about "small groups'" the church had them but did not call them that. They called them "committees" the "choir," or prayer groups.

There is a negative side to small groups that most pastors have encountered. The first small group meeting that my wife and I attended was a gripe session aimed at undermining the pastor. We did not stay there long and eventually that group leader left the church and took most of his group with him. This happens, but is not a reason to omit small groups, it is only a reason to monitor them carefully.

The small group can become "closed" or remain "open." In a closed group, the members will grow spiritually but not numerically. An open group will grow numerically, but spiritual growth will be slow.

If your purpose is for the group to grow spiritually, you must let it close. You do not have to do anything about it because it will naturally close as people develop an intimacy. 

On the other hand, if you want groups to be used to help grow the church numerically, then you must take action to keep the groups open. You will have to consider splitting them when they reach a certain number (10-12) and keep feeding new people into them.

We will continue discussing small groups in later posts.

Bill